These data serve as demand-side indicators of labor shortages at the
national level. Prior to JOLTS, there was no economic indicator of the
unmet demand for labor with which to assess the presence or extent of
labor shortages in the United States. The availability of unfilled
jobs—the job openings rate—is an important measure of the tightness of
job markets, parallel to existing measures of unemployment.

Data from a sample of approximately 16,000 U.S. business establishments
are collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics through the Atlanta JOLTS
Data Collection Center. The JOLTS survey covers all nonagricultural
industries in the public and private sectors for the 50 States and the
District of Columbia.